A Turn
by nicolesoul
Summary: Ziva has a secret hobby//Of course she watched it. She’s watched almost every movie he’s told her to. Not that she ever wanted him to know that.// Oneshot, slight TIVA, spoilers for 7.11


She wants to shoot herself as soon as the quote leaves her mouth.

Tony turns with a look of surprise, "You're quoting "Better off Dead". I told you to watch that."

Ziva looks away and wonders how much blood would get on her desk if she just shoots Tony.

Of course she watched it. She's watched almost every movie he's told her to. Not that she ever wanted him to know that. Ziva tries to focus back on the conversation, filing her embarrassment away.

But the annoying thing about Tony DiNozzo is that be can never stay in the back of her mind for long. When the case is solved and she gets home and turns on the TV (not so much for the entertainment, it's gotten almost as bad as the internet, but the noise is a nice alternate to the silence that reminds her off her solitary cell in Somalia), the TBS announcer proudly declares the next movie on to be "Better Off Dead".

"Of course" Ziva mutters, stalking into her bedroom. Part of her wants to shut the movie off, another part wants to call Tony and invite him over to watch it with her. Ziva ignores both voices and instead strips down to take a shower, leaving the TV as is.

She and Tony used to watch movies together all the time. When Gibbs left, he had come over half-drunk with two-thirds of a six-pack of cheap beer and all the Sean Connery James Bond movies. She had let him in and he had some how managed to stay coherent through three of the movies, the rest of his beer, and the majority of a bottle of Merlot to give her fun facts about James Bond.

Half-way into "Thunderball", he passed out on her couch and she left him there, throwing a blanket over him and setting a glass of water and two Advil on the table beside him. He was gone before she got back from her morning run and they didn't speak about it until three nights later when he arrived, sober this time, with an apology, good wine, a pizza, and "Lethal Weapon", which he could recite line for line and did so proudly.

Ziva saw more movies that summer then she had her entire life, and when she went on the goat, no, lamb, and Gibbs comes back, Tony stops coming. And almost immediately, she misses their movie nights.

But how do you tell someone like Tony DiNozzo that?

Easy, you don't.

Instead Ziva listened and remembered the ridiculous amounts of movies he quoted and referenced. Sometimes she wondered if he knew her secret hobby when he would throw out movie titles, insisting she watch them. She invested in a blockbuster membership and watched the movies alone, pretending like some sad teenage girl he was next to her, making comments and quoting and throwing popcorn at her when she got frustrated over how illogical something was.

"It's a movie Zee-vah."

She watched them often enough to get favorites, often enough to know their famous lines, often enough to recognize famous actors, often enough to have to buy a DVD rack to fit all her movies. She was almost as bad as Tony, almost.

It was a ridiculous indulgence. She tried to stop watching movies when dating Michael because he was even worse than she was at pointing out irregularities, but she really just stopped watching them with him. It made it worse knowing she had to watch movies with Tony or no one at all.

But since getting back from Somalia, Ziva can't seem to get the strength to curl up and watch a movie. Which she knows is odd, since it really shouldn't take that much effort to relax. Her movies were locked up with other belongings in a storage unit while she was away, and although she's unpacked them, they lay untouched, unwatched.

On screen, Charles De Mar repeats her words as Ziva shuts the water off and wraps a towel around her. She says it along with him, "Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn."

Ziva looks over at her DVDs on their shelves and wonders if she could still quote "The Princess Bride". She wonders if Tony would come over if she called. She wonders if they'll ever turn to avoid what's in their way. She wonders if they just need to go a little faster to get back to where they were.

Either way, Ziva's craving popcorn.


End file.
